Teignmouth Town Wall

Has been described as a Possible Urban Defence

There are no visible remains

NameTeignmouth Town Wall
Alternative Names
Historic CountryDevonshire
Modern AuthorityDevon
1974 AuthorityDevon
Civil ParishTeignmouth

A length of embattled wall, close to the shore at Teignmouth, is mentioned by Leland. It must have stood in the neighbourhood of Saint Michael's Church. (PastScape)

Leland, writing in the sixteenth century, in his Itinerary gives what we may regard as an account of Teignmouth in the time of the later Tudor sovereigns. He mentions by their present names the Ness and the Pole Sand; and speaks of East Teignmouth as taken to be the elder of the two towns, and as possessing a market and a church dedicated to St. Michael, and also a piece of embattled wall against the shore. On the west side of this town is, he says, a piece of sandy ground called the Deane or Dene, " whereon have been not many years since divers houses and wine cellars." In West Teignmouth he only mentions the church of St. James. The piece of embattled wall he speaks of must, I conceive, have been in the neighbourhood of St. Michael's Church, near which the market and the fair were held and the market cross stood. A small battery existed at one time on the Den in another direction, and not far from the site of the present one, but this was not erected till after 1774, and was known as the Fort. The wine cellars must, I apprehend, have been cellars for the storage of wine for purposes of trade situated not far from the place of the market and fair, but they seem to have disappeared before Leland's time. (Lake 1904)

Gatehouse Comments

It is not entirely certain the embattled wall was a town defence and Leland may have just been referring to an enclosure around a fortified warehouse or a grandiose sea wall. Given map reference for St Michael's Church.

- Philip Davis

Not scheduled

This is a Grade 2* listed building protected by law

Historic England Scheduled Monument Number
Historic England Listed Building number(s)
Images Of England
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s)
County Historic Environment Record
OS Map Grid ReferenceSX944730
Latitude50.5474891662598
Longitude-3.49221992492676
Eastings294370
Northings73030
HyperLink HyperLink HyperLink

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Books

  • Salter, Mike, 2013, Medieval Walled Towns (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 157 (slight)
  • Creighton, O.H. and Higham, R.A., 2005, Medieval Town Walls (Stroud: Tempus) p. 226, 257
  • Salter, Mike, 1999, The Castles of Devon and Cornwall (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 87 (slight)
  • Pevsner, Nikolaus and Cherry, Bridget, 1989, Buildings of England: Devon (Harmondsworth) p. 796
  • King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 122

Antiquarian

  • Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England  (Sutton Publishing) p. 117
  • Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1907, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 1 p. 225 online copy

Journals

  • Creighton, Oliver, 2006, ''Castles of Communities': Medieval Town Defences in England; Wales and Gascony' Château Gaillard Vol. 22 p. 75-86
  • Lake, W.C., 1904, 'Ancient Teignmouth' Transactions of the Devonshire Association Vol. 36 p. 109 online copy